Current day printers notify the operator when the printer runs out of paper or toner or any other consumable. The operator is also notified in cases such as when a disk is damaged and needs a possible replacement. Notifications such as these take place after an event has occurred. Moreover, when operating a fleet of printers (a network application services this fleet of printers), there is a need to restock consumables when their availability is near exhaustion. Current day research in electronic commerce tries to address aspects such as automatically placing an electronic purchase order with a vendor when stocks of consumables are near exhaustion. However, there is little research and there are not many inventions that address issues such as providing information regarding changes in prices of consumables, notification of regular maintenance service, negotiating prices of consumables, etc. Currently this is being done either by sending an email to the system administrator or by regular mail. Thus, it is possible for the network application to receive requests from a set of approved vendors using an IP address filtering scheme that rejects all packets from any other vendor. This is one way to prevent spamming. However, it is not possible for the network application to reject messages even from approved vendors for any reason using the IP filtering scheme. Moreover IP address filtering mechanism is subject to IP address spoofing attacks.
Many of the individual steps described herein are explained in more detail in the following Supporting Infrastructure and Reference publications, and are incorporated by reference herein.
The above system is built using infrastructures available to support security and electronic commerce.
1. The system makes use of common authentication technologies like SSL[1]/TLS [2] to communicate with vendors while placing orders. The system makes use of secure email methods (like S/MIME)[3], [4] to send or receive email.
2. The system makes use of electronic payment methods (like SET, JEPI) [5] [6] to make a payment for goods ordered using a credit-based system.
3. The system uses electronic commerce technologies like NetBill [7] to make it possible for transactions to take place with payments using on-line banking system.
4. The system maintains a trustable vendor matrix and uses methods such as trust protocols described in [8], [9], [10].
5. The system uses methods described in [11] to provide atomicity in electronic commerce transactions, although it would be unnecessary to do this, since the vendors maintain a certain contract with the customer.
6. The system makes use of inventory management systems like the San Francisco [12] project to support inventory management.
7. The system makes use of glyph technology to automatically receive update and verify information on ordered goods when they arrive at the customer""s site.
1. [SSLV3] A. O. Freier, P. Karlton, P. Kocher, The SSL Protocol V.3,  less than draft-freier-ssl-version3-02.txt greater than , http://home.netscape.com/eng/ssl3/draft302.txt, November 1996.
2. [RFC2246] Dierks T., Allen C., The TLS Protocol Version 1.0,
3. [RFC1847] Galvin J., Murphy S., Crocker S., and Freed N., Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and Multipart/Encrypted, October 1995.
4. [RFC1848] Crocker S., Freed N., Galvin J., and Murphy S., MIME Object Security Services, October 1995.
5. [SET] Secure Electronic Transactions, http://www.mastercard.comset
6. [JEPI] Joint Electronic Payment Initiative, http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Payments/white-paper.html
7. B. Cox, M. Sirbu, J. D. Tygar, NetBill Security and Transaction Protocol. Proceedings of the 1st USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce, pp. 77-88, July 1995.
8. J. Su, D. Manchala, Building Trust for Distributed Commerce Transactions, 17th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS ""97), pp. 322-329, Baltimore, May 1997.
9. D. Manchala. Trust Metrics, Models and Protocols for Electronic Commerce Transactions. 18th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS ""98), pp. 312-321, Amsterdam, May 1998.
10. J. Su, D. Manchala. Trust Vs. Threats: Recovery and Survival in Electronic Commerce. 19th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS ""99), Austin, Tx. May-June 1999.
11. J. Su, D. Tygar, Building Blocks for Atomicity for Electronic Commerce, Proceedings of the 6th USENIX Security Symposium, pp. 97-103. San Jose, July 1996.
12. Rubin B S, Christ A R, Bohrer K A, Java and the IBM San Francisco Project, pp. 365-371, Vol. 37, No. 3. 1998.
This invention describes a method by which a network application engages in a two way conversation with a vendor
i) by placing a purchase order for a consumable and
ii) by renewing a contract originating from the vendor or by re-negotiating prices of consumables with a vendor or by obtaining product specific information from the vendor. The network application receives events from the printers and either notifies operators or places an order with the vendor when the stock of a consumable (e.g., paper, toner) runs low.
The main thrust of the invention comes from the fact that the network application can receive an authenticated request for renewal of contract, and to provide for re-negotiation of price. The system administrator can specify the constraints on the price and/or the quantity of consumables that the application can order automatically, and a certain lee-way for an unanticipated change in price. For example, the system administrator can authorize the network application to place a purchase order for a certain quantity of white A4 paper subject to the constraints that the order can be placed at most twice a week and price changes do not occur for a period of six months. In addition, the system administrator gives a lee-way of $5.00 if price change does occur within the six month period.
The network application can also receive information from the vendor on maintenance, and also the availability of new printer options or upgrades. The network application comes under the threat of being spammed by unsolicited information from vendors. Such unsolicited information is of two kinds. Vendors not approved by the recipient (usually system administrator) could send their promotional information. Even approved vendors may send information above and beyond what has been agreed to by the recipient.
In this invention we also present a spam reduction mechanism that uses email filtering techniques. Email filtering procedure starts by defining a format for messages between the vendor and the recipient network application. By examining the incoming messages based on this format, the network application can filter incoming messages, accepting only those categories of messages that have been pre-approved for this vendor. By this scheme, messages from vendor imposters will also be discarded. This is because the decrypted identification information will not match the expected header information for this vendor.
We. are also proposing a policy by which the network application can examine the identification information and either disregard or accept the message.
The strength of the invention comes from the combination of the following systems to form a complete electronic commerce negotiation and purchasing system. Other electronic commerce systems described in the literature address limited areas. For example, NetBill [7] does not address inventory management or email filtering issues. Our system attempts to provide a total solution for electronic commerce that is also tied to inventory management, email filtering and rule based authorization to purchase goods with allowances for price changes. The system affords flexibility by providing customer configurable policies for each subsystem.
1. A system that manages inventory: When goods arrive at the customer a glyph based scanner reads the information on the goods and automatically updates inventory levels. Thus, the entire process is automated without the need for manual intervention to maintain inventory.
2. A system that automatically places a purchase order when a notification about the near exhaustion of a consumable is received from the network application that services a fleet of printers. Before placing an order, the purchasing system consults the inventory management system regarding the availability of the consumable in stock.
3. A system that negotiates the price of consumables. The customer, such as a commercial print shop, is able to maintain a relationship with several vendors as potential suppliers. This list of vendors is configured by the customer. When the price of a certain consumable changes, the negotiation system interacts with a pre-selected list of vendors to obtain the best purchase. The best purchase is determined by the best fit of customer criteria with availability. In most cases, the best purchase will be determined by the best (cheapest) price. But it could also be based on other criteria such as immediate delivery etc. Sometimes, the best price of a consumable might be a little higher than the maximum limit that the system is allowed to purchase. In such cases, the negotiation system determines whether the price changes are within the leeway it has been allowed by the administrator and then makes a decision to place the purchase order.
4. A system that filters email. A commercial print shop has a relationship with several vendors. Some or all of these vendors may be allowed to send updated information on certain products of interest to the print shop electronically. The print shop however is not interested in any other information. To prevent an overload of email (promotional, unsolicited), email filtering techniques are used. The filtering system forwards only the pre-approved type of mail and re-directs or deletes any other mail.